


Rebuilding Starts With A Seed (and Magic)

by lucdarling



Category: Black Panther (2018), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Heart-Shaped Herb (Marvel), Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 03:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/pseuds/lucdarling
Summary: T'Challa invites a foreign agricultural expert to help regrow the heart-shaped herbs.





	Rebuilding Starts With A Seed (and Magic)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squarepeg72](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squarepeg72/gifts).



> Recipient, I hope you enjoy this! I had fun writing it. Mods, thank you for running the challenge!
> 
> Thank you to C for brainstorming, K for proofing and the title. All remaining mistakes are mine. The recognizable characters belong to their respective creators. I'm not making any profit from this.

The middle-aged man looks unassuming, even more so in dirt-covered robes, holding a peculiar stick in his right hand. Shuri makes a face at his back as he follows T’Challa into the cave systems. He claims to be able to help them regrow their heart-shaped herbs but she’ll wait to be convinced. Shuri has tried regrowing them, blending the ash carefully into prepared mixes of loam soil and rooting hormone with no avail. She’s done more research on growing plants and seedlings than she had in even her biology courses.

They pause at the mouth of the cave and watch as Neville kneels in the middle of the walkway. He sifts the ash and dirt through his fingers, brow furrowed as he thinks.

“Vial of tears, you think?” He mumbles to himself as he makes divots in the mess left behind Killmonger’s burning. “It would be like a regeneration, almost.”

“He’s a wizard?” Shuri whispers to her brother. “Did you pick him up from a D&D campaign?” T’Challa’s lips quirk but he stays focused on Neville, now carefully putting drops of clear liquid from a crystal vial at intervals in the holes his fingers made. He doesn’t reach for the stick lying next to him.

Nothing happens and the silence in the cave is deafening to Shuri.

Neville leans over, nearly putting his nose in the dirt. He blows gently on it and smiles.

“Your Highness, you’ll want to watch this.” Neville beckons, and Shuri follows T’Challa over.

“That’s impossible!” Shuri blurts out before she even takes a spot on the floor next to her brother, because the seed is sprouting before her eyes from nothing, going through the growth of at least a month in the span of a minute or two.

“Magic,” Neville corrects and a warm smile blooms across his face. T’Challa reaches down to cup the little green leaves gently at Neville’s encouraging nod.

“Okay,” Shuri crosses her arms over her chest as she stands. “Do they need sunlight? Watering plan? Can you fix all of them?” She sweeps her arm out to encompass the entire cave. Neville’s only grown a dozen plants so far.

His voice is passionate as he answer while T’Challa stands and extends a hand to help Neville up from his crouched position. “I can’t do any more, I’m afraid. Twelve should be enough to repopulate the cave but it will take a while before it flourishes like I’m told it was. As far as watering and the sunlight to shade ratio, however you took care of the plants before the burning should suffice. I haven’t seen a plant of this type before, not with its properties, so I couldn’t recommend anything specific. I’m sorry.”

Shuri nods and waves off his apology, even though it means she’ll have to consult her records and maybe interrogate the elders, who knew the most of anyone about heart-shaped herbs.

“What else can your magic do?” Shuri asks and ignores T’Challa’s sharp elbow in her side. “Can you regrow body parts, like arms?” Now her brother’s eyes turn to her.

Neville gives a sheepish smile. “I don’t think magic could regrow an arm in full, but I know bones can be mended and regrown entirely. That happened to my friend when we were twelve. I’m not sure how Skele-Gro would interact with a non-magical system though.”

“Huh,” Shuri ponders the differences between magical and non-magical humans with that sentence.

T’Challa takes advantage of the lull in Shuri’s questions. “Wakanda is in your debt, Neville Longbottom,” He pronounces and interestingly, it makes the man blush.

“I’m happy I was able to help, King T’Challa. Thank you for inviting me to Wakanda. If you need my expertise – not that you should, I don’t expect you’ll have any trouble propagating the crop once these sprouts mature – send an owl.”

“Send an owl,” Shuri repeats in tandem with her brother. Neville picks up his stick from the ground.

“Yes,” Neville confirms. “They can find almost anyone. Are the shields over Wakanda down? I can leave from here if they are.”

Shuri slides her phone from her back pocket of her trousers and unlocks it. “Is ten minutes too short a window?” she asks and Neville smiles knowingly.

“Ten seconds would be plenty, Princess Shuri.”

“Shield down for ninety seconds,” Shuri shoots back. “In case you mess up.” T’Challa gives a near silent groan at her sarcasm. She’s been on her best behavior for the entire day that Neville has been in Wakanda, touring the palace and helping the heart-shaped herb propagate where she could not. It wasn’t a failure if it took something so uncategorized and fantastical as _magic_ to fix it.

Neville ignores her and just shakes his head that a minute’s time would be more than sufficient for him to leave, no matter that the caves are at least a thirty-minute walk down to the ground never mind the hour walk to the border between Wakanda and the rest of the world. “Thank you for allowing me to work with your horticulture,” Neville thanks them again. He scrunches his eyes shut and lifts his stick in the air. The tip of the polished wood glows golden. Between one blink and the next, there’s a crack in the air much like thunder and Neville Longbottom is gone from Wakanda.

“TELEPORTATION?” Shuri screeches. “I had to spend three hours at the cockpit controls to pick him up from the middle-of-nowhere Scotland and he can teleport? Do you know how much work I could have gotten done in the lab if I hadn’t had to spend my time piloting?”

T’Challa laughs and throws his arm over her shoulders as they head for the cave entrance and the path back down to the ground. “Like you’re not going to spend the next twelve hours figuring out how exactly Mr. Longbottom disappeared. I know your brain.” He then tries to capture Shuri in a headlock for a noogie but he’s so predictable it’s easy for her to squirm away, hook a foot around his ankle and trip the mighty Black Panther himself onto the ground. He springs up immediately but it’s too late to stop her peal of laughter.

Shuri continues laughing at T’Challa’s surprised face and laments the lack of picture as she strolls into the warm summer sun. Her brain is already processing how to condense mass for instantaneous transport and what else this _magic_ is capable of. Hopefully she’ll meet another wizard someday and she’ll have a list of questions ready.


End file.
